Pick Me Up.

All I was doing was walking home when he interrupted me. First he asked the time, so I told him. Then he asked where I was going.
"I'm sorry, do I know you?" I asked.
"Not yet, but you will." He replied.
So we got to talking and then we got to walking and I thought this might be alright. Three blocks later I told him I was turning left, for my house was down that way. He said he'd walk me home. Now normally I wouldn't let a stranger walk with me, much less walk with me to my own house, but for some reason I felt compelled to allow this stranger to. It might have been a respect issue, maybe I was afraid I might hurt him if I didn't. Whatever the case, we continued on our way. When we reached my doorstep I thanked him for the conversation and left him standing outside. And he stood there for a couple of hours, which was strange but for some odd reason I wasn't frightened.
In the morning I woke up to him in my front yard, sitting, waiting. Now this is strange, I thought. This might be a little bit more than what I was asking for. He followed me around all day, doing errands around town, cleaning the house, and finally going to work.
"Excuse me, but what exactly are you doing?" I finally asked him after I'd become fed up with tripping over his feet which were perpetually two steps behind me.
"I'm sorry, I thought this was what you wanted." He replied, obviously confused.
"No, why would I want this!" I began to get upset.
"I'm sorry, I'll leave." And with that, he left.

Two weeks later another stranger met up with me at a busy cross street by my house. We struck up a much different conversation. He did not ask about the weather, or where I was headed. So I did not ask if I knew him or if we'd met before, because it didn't matter. It felt like I'd known him forever, or at least more than just today. We began to talk and walk, and this time we walked to his house. We sat on his front porch and drank coffee out of small porcelain cups and reminisced about our childhood Halloweens, candy-drunk comas the morning after trick-or-treating with all of your friends and maybe a set of parents if you were one of 'those kids.' Daring adventures on your bicycles that your parents would never hear about, the family dog that died when you were eight, how hard you cried. Your grandpa who was in the war, you couldn't remember which one because you never were that great with History. Science on the other hand! Are you serious, science? Blech. And we'd laugh.
Days of this continued into nights, and those nights were spent in your bed under down comforters with the radio on and our toes touching each other, cold.
Weeks passed, and then months, and then finally something stopped. Inside of me, maybe inside of you, but then there was nothing left to be said. There was perpetual silence whenever we came near one another, and it hurt. The disheartening feeling of losing a joy is painful. But not half as painful as continuing on as if it were still alive.
We slept on opposite sides of the bed, now. No more coffee in the early afternoons, waking up whenever we wanted. Everything pulling me in opposite directions until I feel I might rip in two. And you, standing there witnessing the whole ordeal, apathetic to the fact that I'm drowning in my self created disaster.
Finally that world stopped spinning, and a new one appeared. I entered it to find myself alone, but content. I am not happy, I am not sad. I am a strange in between that I have not yet felt before. I am alone, yet I am not alone, I am surrounded. But I can't find you, you've allowed yourself to disappear.
The next chapter might begin in my living room, it may begin at the supermarket, or the bookstore. Perhaps at the coffee house where I tend to do my reading. On the bus, in the subway, getting locked out of my car. At the drive-through, in the park with my dog, on the train to the next city over. Wherever it begins, I'll just wait for it.